Commentary on Boris Mouravieff's Gnosis

As things
"heat up" here on the Big Blue Marble, we have received much
correspondence from individuals asking "what to do." The subject
has even come up a number of times in the egroup discussions, and many
of the old fears and turmoil have surfaced with ideas of pulling up roots
and - for reasons of self-preservation - moving here or there or undertaking
to follow this or that promoter of "methods of ascension" or
methods of "fixing the planet" so that everybody can just "get
along" or we can all snuggle up with some warm fuzzies and get some
rest.

The reader
who has surveyed the material on this site has surely come to the conclusion
that what we are saying is "nothing is as it seems and never has
been," including the many religions and "methods of ascension"
promoted down through the ages.

But what
is lacking is a clearly defined WAY that might give guidance to
the seeker in his quest for the keys to his own "salvation"
in whatever terms he might define it. I have worked on presenting the
WAY in both the Wave Series
and the Adventures series
by sharing my own experiences and what I have gleaned from much study
and research, but some readers are put off by material that deals with
all the lies and deceptions that we face in our reality and simply want
to read something "uplifting." It doesn't seem to occur to them
that one cannot be "uplifted" as long as one is mired in quicksand.
What seems to be true is that we live in a world of lies - ruled by lies
and stealing - and that human beings lie because it is impossible for
them to do otherwise. Without a Way, that is.

As a result
of our own searching and questing for answers, the repeated trying and
testing of sources and materials, little by little we have come to the
idea of what NOT to do. But again, there has not been a whole lot about
what TO DO.

The Cassiopaeans
have indicated certain pathways to follow, but as always, we are more
or less on our own in acquiring the knowledge and learning how to apply
it - and for good reason, as the reader may know.

In recent
months however, we have been surveying a body of teachings that not only
meshes with, but vigorously expands upon the Cassiopaean Transmissions
to an extent that we cannot think that it is accidental. In fact, the
overlapping and "filling in the gaps" quality of this work is
so astounding that we are certain that the Cassiopaeans themselves are
very likely involved in this teaching in ways we do not understand.

The work
in question is that of the Russian exile Boris Mouravieff, presented in
his three part study and commentaries entitled Gnosis. Very
little information is available on the background of these materials while
a good deal of disinformation is circulating in other circles, and it
is best to address these problems before we even attempt to present the
material.

Just in
case the reader is not familiar with Gurdjieff, let me give a little background.
Dating from his first lectures in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1912, George
Ivanovich Gurdjieff attracted the attention of occultists and many Western
aristocrats. His teachings (often referred to as the 'Gurdjieff Work'
or 'Fourth Way') became widely known through the writings and lectures
of his pupil, the famous Russian mathematician and journalist Pyotr D.
Ouspensky, and were later propagated by Alfred Orage, John G. Bennett,
Rodney Collins, and Dr. Maurice Nicoll.

Gurdjieff
himself admitted that he was utilizing 'stolen' teachings from a wide
range of groups that he had encountered (including the Yezidis, the Russian
Orthodox Church, and Sufi 'Bektashi' and 'Naqshbandi' sects in the Hindu
Kush and Pamir regions) in his world travels. A deep study of Gurdjieff's
work shows that he was obviously experimenting with his own ideas on how
to utilize bits and pieces from these different teachings to create a
system that would enable individuals to overcome ingrained "cognitive
defects," become more conscious, and awaken the Higher Self's "Objective
Conscience."

At a certain
point, it seems that Gurdjieff realized that he had undertaken an impossible
task since nearly all of his students "heard" only what they
wanted to hear. He closed his school and concentrated on putting his ideas
into allegory in his book Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson
(1950), which also incorporated and developed additional esoteric themes
into his ideas.

Many of
Gurdjieff's concepts have profoundly influenced our present culture due
to the fact that some of his followers were famous and wealthy and had
the means to promote them to others in the upper classes. After his death
in 1949, Gurdjieff's legacy was disseminated through many people, and
much of his work has been passed on through fragmentation of the many
groups into something akin to secular denominations. One of the biggest
problems with what happened to Gurdjieff's work - what seemed to be a
sincere attempt to help humanity - was further obscured by the formation
of what can only be called personality cults and identifications with
Gurdjieff at the expense of his ideas. It seems that Gurdjieff himself
saw this coming at the end of his life.

Groups that
are offshoots of Gurdjieff's teachings have been known to use all kinds
of things to reprogram their members, including isolation, group think,
authoritarian power structures, and other psychological methods designed
to unmask or break down the personal ego. But, what seems clear is that,
in the case of Gurdjieff, no one group can claim the whole cheese since
he was curiously selective about what he told whom, and even those who
were closest to him obviously misunderstood what he was trying to convey,
as evidenced by his own statements about this factor towards the end of
his life.

Mouravieff
tells us:

People
interested in esoteric matters will probably have read the book by P.D.
Ouspensky, published posthumously, titled "In Search of the
Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching." The ideas
in that book were presented to Ouspensky by Georges Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff
indicates the basis of his teaching: "for the benefit of those
who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity."

Ouspensky's
book - correctly indicated by the title - contains only fragments
of a tradition which, until recently, was only transmitted orally.
And only a study of the complete tradition can give access to the revelation.
The system disclosed by the fragments that form Ouspensky's book and
Gurdjieff's work, originates from revelations issued by the Great Esoteric
Brotherhood to which the Apostle Paul alluded in his Epistle to the
Romans:

We are
assured and know that all things work together and are fitting into
a plan for good to and for those who love God and are called according
to design and purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also destined
from the beginning to be molded into the image of His Son, that he
might become the firstborn of MANY brethren. And those whom He thus
foreordained, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified,
made them righteous, and those whom He justified, He also glorified.

What
then shall we say to this: If God is for us, who can be against us?
[8;28-31]

Boris
Mouravieff asks: What should be the attitude of students towards the
"Gurdjieff phenomenon" and Ouspensky's "Fragments"?

The attentive
reader will easily find the answer to that question himself in the contents
of this article: we must begin by separating the message from the messenger,
and we must look for the message beyond the level or information. This
is the way to discover and eliminate error.

In a myth
well known in the Orient we are told that there exists a race of 'Royal
Swans'. The fable adds that if we put milk mixed with water in front
of one of them, it will separate out the milk and drink it, leaving
the water. That must be the attitude of students.

"Saint
Gregory Palamas said the same when he wrote in his first Triad: "As
for those people they call ‘theologians’ or ‘teachers,’ and think
themselves able to borrow their theological terms, is it necessary
even to mention them? Is it necessary that we keep away from "the
light which lights every man who comes into the world," and wait for
the terrible shadows of ignorance to illumine us, on the pretext that,
just as serpents are useful, this is something useful for us? For
the flesh of serpents is only useful to us if they have been killed,
and cut up and used with reason as a remedy against their own bites.
Those who kill them in this way turn a part of these snakes against
themselves, just as if they had killed with his own sword a new Goliath,
who had taken arms, who had set himself up to oppose us, who cursed
the army of the living God - someone educated in divine things by
sinners and illiterates."

The fact
is, Gurdjieff faced great difficulties at the point in time when he sought
to experiment with waking up humanity. As noted above, it was "Mission
Impossible." However, what he and his followers did manage to do
was to slash a trail through a jungle of lies and disinformation. It is
not appropriate for his followers to insist that this bare trail is all
there is and that there is no more. Rather, it is only logical to widen
the trail, to pass through the gate revealed at the end of the trail,
and discover what lies on the other side.

"Lastly,"
said Mouravieff, "let those who have profited and are still profiting
from the 'message' be sincerely grateful to the messenger and to the
one who interpreted it. If they know how, let them pray for the salvation
of their souls."

Patterson
fails to bring forth the least fact, the least witness, the least clue,
the least element of proof. He only states an opinion, his own, considering
it of sufficient weightiness to confuse it with the truth.

When Patterson
writes: "Mouravieff's negative judgment of Gurdjieff rests on...the
perception...Gurdjieff stole the teaching", the statement suggests that
this is Mouravieff's perception, a purely subjective assumption leading
to a serious accusation: stealing.

In fact,
Mouravieff reports the admission from Gurdjieff himself. He brings
a testimonial and it is the testimonial of an admission. The minimal
space given to this fact can be compared to the long developments which
Patterson devotes to his own assumptions. On one side an admission,
on the other suppositions. To which does Patterson give more attention?
[...]

Patterson's
attitude reveals a classic psychological process. We can see several
aspects of this: The first aspect is evoked by Patterson himself: "the
projection onto the teacher". Indeed, it seems that certain individuals
cannot approach the Knowledge without associating a name or a face to
it. They "personalize" that which, in essence, is beyond all personalizing;
and then emotion surpasses thought, that is, intelligence. [...] They
focus their attention on the messenger instead of the message. This
personalizing can take the acute form of veneration, not to say idolatry.
Then, all questioning of their idol, even in the name of truth,
is judged iconoclastic. The "blasphemer" must be punished -- that is,
invalidated -- so that the worship of the idol may continue.

The second
aspect: he who identifies with the messenger finds himself inevitably
wounded by the "attacks" (as they see them) against the idol. His personality,
cut to the quick, will react. Pushed on by Nature -- which refuses all
suffering -- it will fall back on the "self-tranquilizing machine".

We know
that, among the means used by the self-tranquilizing machine, there
are two primary ones: the first is sentimentality toward oneself, self-pity,
the second is accusation of the other. Each of these attitudes -- or
both together as they generally form an "infernal couple" -- will calm,
place a balm on the wound. And this will occur to the detriment of
truth, replaced by justifications and rationalizations calling
upon imagination whenever necessary. [...]

This approach
is close to being in bad faith, for instance in suggesting that Gnosis
is "verbiage and lack of clarity and comprehension on the part of Mouravieff".
This is proven wrong by many readers who "have commented on the clarity
of the text" (preface of Gnosis II).

I would
like to add here that we most thoroughly agree that Mouravieff's work
is extraordinary in its clarity and completion of what was started by
Gurdjieff, explaining much that Gurdjieff never explained, or if he did,
those he explained it to either did not understand it, or sought to keep
it secret so as to dispense it in controlled dollops to those they considered
worthy (or who had enough money to pay for it.) Mouravieff's student goes
on to say:

He writes
(without any proof by the way): "Mouravieff, an exiled aristocrat, had
the typical sense of superiority over Russian émigrés
he presumed to be socially inferior." "An aristocrat, intellectual and
moralist, Mouravieff no doubt had trouble with Gurdjieff's unconventional
behavior." It seems that Patterson could not imagine any other criteria
to perceive others than through their social circumstances, as if a
person could be reduced to a caricature.

Patterson
criticizes Mouravieff for stripping "Gurdjieff's teaching of its mooring
in sacred science and insert it into an Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective..."
And he adds peremptorily: "The two teachings simply didn't fit together."

I would
like to note here that the work of Mouravieff provides that ineluctable
bridge between the works of Gurdjieff, Ibn al-'Arabi, Carlos Casteneda,
conjectured esoteric Christianity, hermeticism/alchemy and the Cassiopaeans.
It should be noted that the Cassiopaeans have definitively supported the
existence and work of a man around whom the Jesus legend formed - though
they tell us that the story in the Bible that is supposed to be history
is a myth - and here we find a body of teachings that lends background
to this view, as well as supplemental information that elucidates the
many clues offered by the Cassiopaeans. In our opinion, it is not only
precipitate to reject Mouravieff's work, it is possibly suicidal. The
comments of Mouravieff's student continue:

And yet...!
Is not the System of Octaves symbolized by the musical scale (tones
and semitones) as well as by the notes that compose it (Dominus, Sidereus
orbis, etc...). Is not the origin of these notes a Christian hymn to
John the Baptist? Mouravieff reminds us of this in detail (Gnosis,
chapter 10). He therefore responds, in preventive measure, to the issues
raised by Patterson by showing that Christianity, including its European
version, contained the System of Octaves at a certain period.

Going
back through Christianity to Judaism, Mouravieff points out the presence
of the System in David's Psalm 118. Finally, there is no question that
the Philokalia contains all the precepts of the Work
and its "Christianity" need not be proven...

Besides,
Gurdjieff himself -- as Mouravieff reminds us -- made reference rather
often to both monasteries and to Christian esotericism. And, other than
questioning Mouravieff's witness -- that is, to call him a liar -- Gurdjieff
stated to him that [Gurdjieff's] System "was the ABC of Christian
doctrine".

Mouravieff
himself tells us that he learned the System "in 1920-21" in Constantinople
through Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. This does not mean that Mouravieff
did not follow other teachings, "Christian" teachings for example (see
references in the manuscript INITIATION). On this last point, having
no information, we can only ask questions: Did Mouravieff have Christian
masters? Did they know the System? Or did Mouravieff study for himself
"monuments such as the Philokalia", and discovered on
his own the keys to the Gospels from Psalm 118?

It would
be an exceptional exploit of a self-taught person in a field where everyone
claims the importance of an oral tradition.

In saying
that Ouspensky had "never been initiated in the oral Tradition other
than through Gurdjieff", Mouravieff suggests that he personally had
access to this oral Tradition among confirmed masters. But this
can only be a deduction, based on our crediting the honesty of Mouravieff;
there is no "objective" certainty.

Whatever
the case may be, we come out of these conjectures with the observation,
which is now entirely objective, that Gnosis contains
more information then [Ouspensky's] Fragments. Mouravieff evaluated
the volume of supplementary material in Gnosis at one third more than
those contained in Ouspensky's Fragments.

How can
Patterson explain that the copier knows more than the one copied, that
the thief is richer than the one who is robbed?

Certainly,
one should analyze the nature of this additional material contained
in Gnosis. Are these traditional teachings or ideas belonging
to Mouravieff? It is also possible that Ouspensky, or his inheritors,
did not reveal everything in Fragments.

But Patterson
does not mention the objective fact that Gnosiscompletes
Ouspensky's revelations. Ouspensky's fragmentary message becomes,
thanks to Mouravieff, an enlarged message "in the strict limits which
are necessary and sufficient to enable the student to go further and
in depth through his own creative efforts."

Gurdjieff
never clearly announced his goal: "I certainly have a goal...but my
goal cannot mean anything to you at this time." What Gurdjieff does
not reveal, Patterson miraculously knows and can confide to us:
"Gurdjieff's mission was to establish the ancient teaching of the Fourth
Way in the West as quickly as possible."

On the
other hand, what Patterson does not tell us is by whom was this mission
given and in what way Gurdjieff was predisposed to accomplish it. Mouravieff
does present certain unfortunate predispositions [about Gurdjieff] which
are not favorable to the accomplishment of Gurdjieff's supposed mission:

1) Gurdjieff
is more the "sorcerer" type (hypnotist) than the teacher in the tradition
of Socrates. Considering his type, his teaching activity was in great
risk of being contaminated and parasited by the hypnotic influence
that he "automatically" exerted over people.

2) According
to Mouravieff, Gurdjieff did not possess the intellectual talent to
structure and shape the teaching. He had to rely on an intermediary
-- Ouspensky. Mouravieff also has reservations on the oral expression
[of Gurdjieff] which was sometimes brutal and insulting.

Why did
Gurdjieff hide his sources? Why does he remain silent on this subject,
except in rare exceptional circumstances, such as that encounter with
Mouravieff at the Cafe de la Paix: "I find the system at the
foundations of the Christian doctrine. What do you say on this matter?"
[asked Mouravieff of Gurdjieff]-- "It is the ABC," Gurdjieff
answered me. "But they do not understand this!"

In his book,
Struggle of the Magicians, Patterson includes quotes on the front pages
which say:

The Magus
is the highest that man can approach to God. G.I. Gurdjieff

Toast
to Gurdjieff: God give you the strength and the manhood to endure your
lofty solitude. Rachmilevitch

Gurdjieff
is a kind of walking God - a planetary or even solar God. A.R. Orage

In response
to these ideas, obviously dear to the heart of many Gurdjieff followers,
including Patterson, let me just point out that Gurdjieff never accomplished
the transmutation. He died just like everybody else.

Considering
the fact that several other "seekers" were reputed to have transitioned
without seeing death - Flamel and Fulcanelli among them - we might think
that the only parts of Gurdjieff's work that should interest us are the
parts that elucidate the work of the affirmed Masters. And frankly, Mouravieff
has offered many clues that do, in fact, contribute to the body of alchemical/hermetic
knowledge in a significant way.

So, in reading
these many sources and comparing, we do have some chance of discerning
the gems caught between the cracks in the pavement. Patterson has done
himself and all other seekers a great disservice in his attacks on Mouravieff.

One of the
things that really struck me when doing the research on Mouravieff was
the following remark from the pages of the group - Praxis
- that is promoting his books:

The course
studies the Christian Gnosis of Boris Mouravieff, exiled at the time
of the Russian Revolution, who was a little-known 'third man' who
before and after WWII, and taught and practiced the Fourth Way in its
original Christian form.

This raised
the hair on my head not only because of all the material I had found in
Mouravieff's work that echoed the words of the Cassiopaeans, but because
of the remark they had once made:

07-19-97
A: Laura, my dear, if you really want to reveal "many beautiful and
amazing things," all you need to do is remember the triad, the trilogy,
the trinity, and look always for the triplicative connecting clue profile.
Connect the threes... do not rest until you have found three beautifully
balancing meanings!!
Q: So, in everything there are three aspects?
A: And why? Because it is the realm of the three that you occupy. In
order to possess the keys to the next level, just master the Third Man
Theme, then move on with grace and anticipation.

And I can
guarantee the reader that Mouravieff presents the keys to move on to the
next level.

This brings
us back to the issue of what we are supposed to DO in this day and age
that is getting scarier by the minute. When I was at that stage myself,
asking where should we do and what should we do, I was quite surprised
when the C's responded that all of the running around to look for "safe
places" was just "3D thinking" and that the only thing
that counted was:

"Who
you are and WHAT YOU SEE."

This was
expanded with a question about what are the lessons of 3D that we need
to learn to "graduate" to 4 D:

Q: (L)
Well, how in the heck am I supposed to get there [graduate to 4th Density]
if I can't "get it?"
A: Who says you have to "get it" before you get there?
Q: (L) Well, that leads back to: what is the wave going to do to expand
this awareness? Because, if the wave is what "gets you there,"
what makes this so?
A: No. It is like this: After you have completed all your lessons in
"third grade," where do you go?
Q: (L) So, it is a question of...
A: Answer, please.
Q: (L) You go to fourth grade.
A: Okay, now, do you have to already be in 4th grade in order to be
allowed to go there? Answer.
Q: (L) No. But you have to know all the 3rd density things...
A: Yes. More apropos: you have to have learned all of the lessons.
Q: (L) What kind of lessons are we talking about here?
A: Karmic and simple understandings.
Q: (L) What are the key elements of these understandings, and are they
fairly universal?
A: They are universal.
Q: (L) What are they?
A: We cannot tell you that.
Q: (L) Do they have to do with discovering the MEANINGS of the symbology
of 3rd density existence, seeing behind the veil... and reacting to
things according to choice? Giving each thing or person or event its
due? [As the Sufis teach.]
A: Okay. But you cannot force the issue. When you have learned, you
have learned!

Curiously,
this issue of what the individual can SEE was brought up in another context
- that of discerning the character of very negative forces in our reality:

Q: (L)
Okay. Bundy described his murdering urges as a "pressure building inside"
him that he couldn't overcome, and it seemed to cause him to stop being
"human," as we think of it. That seems to me to be an example of an
implant being able to overcome a person's social behavior, or controls
over antisocial tendencies. Is this also what happened to the person
who killed JO?
A: Maybe.
Q: (L) Is there a connection between the newly missing girl, CB, and
JO?
A: You are doing well in your probing of the knowledge within on this
issue, we suggest continuance, after all, learning is fun!
Q: (L) So, it seems to me that there was a connection between the appearance
of CB and JO. Could it be that the individual who killed one or both
of them was programmed to respond to this particular type facial characteristic?
Could that be part of the programming?
A: End subject.
Q: (L) What do you mean?
A: We have helped you all that is necessary for now on this matter.
It is beneficial for you to continue on your own for growth.
Q: (L) Can I ask just one or two more LITTLE questions in a different
direction? I mean, this is like walking away and leaving me in the dark!
A: No it is not!
Q: (L) I would like to be able to solve this because the families are
in pain and have asked for help.
A: Why don't you trust your incredible abilities? If we answer for you
now, you will be helpless when it becomes necessary for you to perform
this function on a regular basis, as it will be!!!!
Q: (L) Well, frankly, I don't want to be involved in any more murder
investigations. It is too upsetting. Am I supposed to DO this sort of
thing regularly???
A: Not same arena.
Q: (L) Well, then how do you mean "perform this function?"
A: No, seeing the unseen.

I would
like to ask the reader to please note that the C's indicated that "seeing
the unseen" would be a necessary function and that being unable to
do it would leave me (and anybody else on the path!) "helpless."
This takes us back to "who you are and what you SEE," and leads
to another important point:

C's: Beware
of disinformation. It diverts your attention away from reality thus
leaving you open to capture and conquest and even possible destruction.
Disinformation comes from seemingly reliable sources. It is extremely
important for you to not gather false knowledge as it is more damaging
than no knowledge at all. Remember knowledge protects, ignorance endangers.
The information you speak of, Terry, was given to you deliberately because
you and Jan and others have been targeted due to your intense interest
in level of density 4 through 7 subject matter. You have already been
documented as a "threat." [...] Remember, disinformation is very effective
when delivered by highly trained sources because hypnotic and transdimensional
techniques are used thereby causing electronic anomalies to follow suggestion
causing perceived confirmation to occur.

So, let's
get on with it: learning to See the Unseen with the help of the work of
Mouravieff.

In the following
sections, I will be quoting heavily from Mouravieff's books, including
the introductions, but often with the insertion of "modern terms"
at certain points, or terms which will make the excerpts more comprehensible
to those who have not delved deeply into such studies. It is my hope that
this condensation will inspire the readers to not only read the works
of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and Mouravieff, but that it will provide a
broader framework for understanding the many articles and sessions files
of Cassiopaean Transmissions published on this website.

Boris
Mouravieff's trilogy "Gnosis,"
is an attempt to recover and describe, in terms understandable to modern
man, a particular Tradition handed down over the centuries, in a sometimes
broken line, but one that still exists today in the Eastern Orthodox
Church. This tradition could be said to be the Christian equivalent
of Yoga, Zen, and the other inner traditions of the far Eastern religions,
disciplines, which have each existed as specializations within the religion
of which they are a part.

It is
not one man's system or invention, but has its roots far back in the
history of Christianity - whose roots lie in certain statements of St.
Paul, and perhaps even of Christ himself. Their development can be
traced first through formative figures of the early churches, and it
clearly relates to the doctrines expressed in the key texts of Eastern
spirituality such as the Philokalia.

It clearly
relates the oral tradition known as the Royal Way that survives
to this day in the main centers of monasticism in the Eastern church.
But it does not claim to be a work of Orthodox theology, nor to reinterpret
Orthodox doctrine.

Mouravieff
admits that the survival of this tradition within the church is tenuous,
that the doctrine does not appear to survive in full or has not been
collected together in full. Monks on Athos admit the existence of the
Tradition but say that it has never been fully spelled out in writing.
The importance of Mouravieff's work is the effort he has made to collect
that dispersed information and to make it accessible in practical form.

What are
the sources of Mouravieff's knowledge? It is clear that his text consists
of knowledge of a high order.

There
are several ways in which the accuracy of a text can be verified, and
Mouravieff's stands up to all these methods of assay. First of all,
it fits the Orthodox tradition as expressed by those who still possess
the Royal Way. It evokes the confirmation of inspiration described
in Plato's seventh letter. It predicts, in what appears at first to
be mere theory, the actual events of the life in the study of Gnosis.
It stands the test of practice, and in doing so it remains internally
consistent. When it does introduce ideas from other traditions, such
as the concept of karma, it does so in ways that, properly understood,
remain consistent to the overall statement of the doctrine with a degree
of precision equal to that of the mature external sciences.

Those
who can discriminate between different levels of knowledge will find
in Mouravieff and almost inexhaustible treasury of knowledge that can
lead to true spiritual transformation. But it is necessary first to
work for this discrimination. Without it, not only will you be unable
to differentiate between gnosis and its imitations, but even Mouravieff's
work will not release its gnosis to you in trust.

The idea
of esotericism is often misunderstood. The clue can be found in the
Gospel of Saint John: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: he
that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:
for without me ye can do nothing."

The word
translated "without," the Greek "choris," quite
definitely means "outside." What this means is that in those
times there was an inner knowledge, based on assenting to traditional
knowledge - gnosis - which is then confirmed experimentally through
techniques of inner observation, and a purely external kind of knowledge,
gained through the ordinary senses.

Constantine
Cavarnos confirmed that there is an exoteric and esoteric Christianity:

"The
first kind of philosophy, external philosophy, comprises for them ancient
Greek philosophy and the pagan philosophy of early Christian centuries.
The second kind, "internal philosophy," is identical with
the [true] Christian religion." [The Hellenic Christian Philosophical
Tradition," Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Belmont,
MA, 1989. p. 109, quoted in the introduction to Mouravieff's "Gnosis
II]

Over the
years, this esotericism has formed a Tradition, a science, or discipline
of knowledge which may have existed before the time of Christ, but which
has since been totally assimilated to the inner meaning of Christianity.
Boris Mouravieff says that "This Tradition, which in Antiquity
was only revealed in the Mysteries under the seal of absolute secrecy."

Under the
influence of self-proclaimed initiates of The Tradition such as Guenon
and Schwaller, Mouravieff has unfortunately adopted the idea that this
Tradition passed from Egypt to Judaea and thus to Christianity. However
what is clear is that the True Tradition of the Eleusinian mysteries is
behind Christianity, and it was the Egyptian Tradition that became the
false teaching that corrupted and distorted the work of the man we have
come to know as Jesus. It is only in more recent times, with much additional
research, including that of Pincknett and Prince in The
Stargate Conspiracy, that we are even able to separate these
threads and come to this understanding. So, Mouravieff cannot be criticized
on this score.

In Manly
Hall's exhaustive compendium, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, we find
mention of the fact that St. Irenaeus was complaining about the efforts
to compare Christianity to the religion of the Egyptians which included
the death and resurrection of Osiris/Horus. Irenaeus had some other interesting
things to say about this, as Hall points out:

"According
to popular conception, Jesus was crucified during the thirty-third year
of His life and in the third year of His ministry following his baptism.
About AD 180, St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, one of the most eminent
of the ante-Nicene theologians, wrote Against Heresies,
an attack on the doctrines of the Gnostics. In this work, Irenaeus declared
upon the authority of the Apostles themselves that Jesus lived to old
age. To quote:

'They,
however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that
which is written, maintain that He preached for one year only, and
then suffered in the twelfth month. [In speaking thus], they are forgetful
of their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing
Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than
any other, that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a
teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had His disciples,
if He did not teach? And how could He have taught unless He had reached
the age of a Master?

For
when He came to be baptised, He had not yet completed His thirtieth
year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age; and, according
to these men, He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism.
On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still
a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age.

Now,
that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that
this extends onward to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but
from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards
old age, which Our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the
office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify;
those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord,
affirming that John conveyed to them that information. And He remained
among them up to the time of Trajan.

Some
of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also,
and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to
the validity of the statement. Whom then should we rather believe?
Whether such men as these or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles,
and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of
an apostle?"

Well, obviously,
this "Gospel" that Irenaeus refers to as testifying that Jesus
did not suffer and die has disappeared! It could be among those of the
library of Nag Hammadi. But, commenting on the foregoing passage, theologian
Godfrey Higgins remarks that it has fortunately escaped the hands of those
destroyers who have attempted to render the Gospel narratives consistent
by deleting all such statements. He also notes that the doctrine of the
crucifixion was a vexata questio among Christians even during the
second century.

"The
evidence of Irenaeus, " he says, "cannot be touched. On every
principle of sound criticism, and of the doctrine of probabilities,
it is unimpeachable." [Anacalypsis, Godfrey Higgins, London, 1836,
quoted by Manly P. Hall]

The fad
for all things "Egyptian" has been with us for a very long time.
Schwaller de Lubicz - the vector of many of these ideas - settled in Egypt
in 1938 and for the next 15 years studied the symbolism of the temples,
particularly Luxor, finding what he considered to be proof that the ancient
Egyptians were the ultimate examples of Synarchy, because the were ruled
by a group of elite initiates. He failed to point out that the
Egyptian civilization was static and limited. What's more, it caved in
on itself, and never managed to produce any significant work of benefit
for humanity, as Otto Neugebauer showed conclusively in his "The
Exact Sciences in Antiquity."

The open-minded
thinker ought to really consider the purported mysteries of Egypt in terms
of the fact that they were so ignorant that they devoted a huge amount
of energy to their "cult of the dead." The whole Egyptian shtick
is focused around preserving dead flesh for future or otherworldly reanimation.
The very fact that there are so many of these dead bodies for Egyptologists
to dig up is the clearest evidence that the Egyptian beliefs were nonsense.

The whole
issue of the excitement over Egyptian civilization is the belief that
they had some power to control the forces of life because they built the
pyramids and we can't. And has it never occurred to anybody that the
existence of the pyramids in conjunction with the worship of an elite
group of human beings, while everybody else was wearing loincloths and
sweating in the hot sun, might suggest a relationship between the two?
The fact is, the Egyptian civilization seems to have been the chief example
of a vast chasm between the haves and the have-nots, and they managed
to do it longer than anybody else.

In examining
the work of Schwaller, we have one of the better examples of the subtle
way the negative occult societies attack those who come to bring light,
by association and co-opting. The tactic is to find a means of subtly
allying their message with that of the truly Positive so as to generate
confusion in untrained minds which would tend on surface evidence to accept
these actually contrary messages as similar, at least in intent.

The negative
occultists who are promoting the new Control System borrow all their components
from what is of truth, and proceed by the method of imitation. They literally
will ape the expression of positive teachings, and all the more carefully
when they wish to be mistaken altogether for purveyors of truth, so as
to subvert the messages.

Their usual
strategy is to begin by adhering so closely to the truth as to be virtually
indistinguishable to all but heightened, thinking awareness. They install
their ideas through the rhythmic lull of entrainment so as to catch
the "congregation" totally off guard when they finally diverge
slightly or greatly from the truth and so pull the listener along with
them. The voice of deception is, of course, all the more ingratiatingly
imitative of "goodness" where it is addressing a listener who
is truly desirous of seeking truth; those who are lazy to begin with don't
need such careful wording to deceive them as they are already willing
to be deceived.

And so it
was that Mouravieff, under the influence of the Synarchists of his day,
introduced some of their ideas into his own synthesis of the authentic
Tradition, including the idea that the Tradition was passed from Egypt
to Judaea via Moses.

What seems
to be the Truth is that the Tradition came from the North, the fabled
land of the Hyperboreans, via Orpheus and Pythagoras.

Accounts
of the travels and studies of Pythagoras differ, but most historians agree
that he visited many countries and studied at the feet of many masters.
Supposedly, after having been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries,
he went to Egypt and was initiated into the Mysteries of Isis. He then
traveled to Phoenicia and Syria and was initiated into the Mysteries of
Adonis. After that, he traveled to the valley of the Euphrates and learned
all the secrets of the Chaldeans still living in the area of Babylon.
Finally, he traveled to Media and Persia, then to India where he was a
pupil and initiate of the Brahmins there. Sounds like he had all the bases
covered.

Pythagoras
was said to have invented the term "philosopher" in preference to the
word "sage" since the former meant one who is attempting to find the truth,
and the latter means one who knows the truth. Apparently Pythagoras didn't
think he had the whole banana.

Pythagoras
started a school at Crotona in Southern Italy and gathered students and
disciples there whom he supposedly instructed in the principles of the
secrets that had been revealed to him. He considered mathematics, music
and astronomy to be the foundation of all the arts and sciences. When
he was about sixty years old, he married one of his disciples and had
seven children. I guess he was a pretty lively senior citizen! His wife
was, apparently, quite a woman in her own right and she carried on his
work after he was assassinated by a band of murderers incited to violence
by a student whom he refused to initiate. The accounts of Pythagoras'
murder vary. Some say he and all his disciples were killed, others say
that he may have escaped because some of his students protected him by
sacrificing themselves and that he later died of a broken heart when he
realized the apparent fruitlessness of his efforts to illuminate humanity.

The experts
say that very little remains of the teachings of Pythagoras in the present
time unless it has been handed down in secret schools or societies. And,
naturally, every secret society on the planet claims to have this "initiated"
knowledge to one extent or another. It is possible that there exists some
of the original secret numerical formulas of Pythagoras, but the sad fact
is that there is no real evidence of it in the writings that have
issued from these groups for the past millennium. Though everyone discusses
Pythagoras, no one seems to know any more than the post-Pythagorean Greek
speculators who "talked much, wrote little, knew less, and concealed their
ignorance under a series of mysterious hints and promises." There seems
to be a lot of that going around these days! Even Plutarch did not pretend
to be able to explain the significance of the geometrical diagrams of
Pythagoras. However, he did make the most interesting suggestion that
the relationship which Pythagoras established between the geometrical
solids and the gods was the result of images seen in the Egyptian temples.
And that, of course, could be misleading.

Albert Pike,
the great Masonic symbolist, also admitted that there were many things
that he couldn't figure out. In his Symbolism for the 32nd and 33rd
degrees he wrote:

I do not
understand why the 7 should be called Minerva, or the cube, Neptune.
...Undoubtedly the names given by the Pythagoreans to the different
numbers were themselves enigmatical and symbolic - and there is little
doubt that in the time of Plutarch the meanings these names concealed
were lost. Pythagoras had succeeded too well in concealing his symbols
with a veil that was from the first impenetrable, without his oral explanation.

Manly Hall
writes:

This
uncertainty shared by all true students of the subject proves conclusively
that it is unwise to make definite statements founded on the indefinite
and fragmentary information available concerning the Pythagorean system
of mathematical philosophy.

With what
little we have examined thus far, we are beginning to realize how true
this latter remark is. Of course, in the present time, there is a whole
raft of folks who don't let such remarks stop them. Any number of modern
gurus claim to have discovered the secrets of "Sacred Geometry!" Not only
that, they don't seem to have even studied the matter deeply at all, missing
many of the salient points that are evident in the fragments of Pythagorean
teachings. Regarding this, there is a passage in Foucault's Pendulum,
by Umberto Eco, that explicates the problem:

Amid all
the nonsense there are some unimpeachable truths... I invite you to
go and measure [an arbitrarily selected] kiosk. You will see that the
length of the counter is one hundred and forty-nine centimeters - in
other words, one hundred-billionth of the distance between the earth
and the sun. The height at the rear, one hundred and seventy-six centimeters,
divided by the width of the window, fifty-six centimeters, is 3.14.
The height at the front is nineteen decimeters, equal, in other words,
to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum of the heights
of the two front corners is one hundred and ninety times two plus one
hundred and seventy-six times two, which equals seven hundred and thirty-two,
the date of the victory at Poitiers. The thickness of the counter is
3.10 centimeters, and the width of the cornice of the window is 8.8
centimeters. Replacing the numbers before the decimals by the corresponding
letters of the alphabet, we obtain C for ten and H for eight, or C10H8,
which is the formula for naphthalene.

...With
numbers you can do anything you like. Suppose I have the sacred number
9 and I want to get the number 1314, date of the execution of Jacques
de Molay - a date dear to anyone who professes devotion to the Templar
tradition of knighthood. ...Multiply nine by one hundred and forty-six,
the fateful day of the destruction of Carthage. How did I arrive at
this? I divided thirteen hundred and fourteen by two, by three, et cetera,
until I found a satisfying date. I could also have divided thirteen
hundred and fourteen by 6.28, the double of 3.14, and I would have got
two hundred and nine. That is the year Attalus I, king of Pergamon,
ascended the throne.

You see?
...The universe is a great symphony of numerical correspondences...
numbers and their symbolisms provide a path to special knowledge. But
if the world, below and above, is a system of correspondences where
tout se tient, it's natural for the [lottery] kiosk and the pyramid,
both works of man, to reproduce in their structure, unconsciously, the
harmonies of the cosmos. [Eco]

The idea
has been promoted with great vigor for over a thousand years that so-called
Kabbalists and "interpreters of mysteries" can discover with their incredibly
tortuous methods The Truth, completely misses the point of a truth that
is far more ancient: Mathematics is the language of Nature. The
Pythagoreans declared arithmetic to be the mother of the mathematical
sciences. This idea was based on the fact that geometry, music, and astronomy
are dependent upon arithmetic, but arithmetic is not dependent upon them.
In this sense, geometry may be removed but arithmetic will remain; but
if arithmetic be removed, geometry will be eliminated. In the same way,
music depends on arithmetic. Eliminating music affects arithmetic only
by limiting one of its expressions.

Why do we
think that Esoteric Christianity is related to the ancient Eleusinian
mysteries?

The cult
of Demeter which celebrated the Eleusinian rites was well established
in Mycenaea in the 13th century BC, and it is more than likely that the
Feast of Tabernacles in Canaan was an offshoot of this activity. Our sources
of information regarding the Eleusinian Mysteries include the ruins of
the sanctuary there; numerous statues, bas reliefs, and pottery. We also
have reports from ancient writers such as Aeschylos, Sophocles, Herodotus,
Aristophanes, Plutarch, and Pausanias - all of whom were initiates - as
well as the accounts of Christian commentators like Clement of Alexandria,
Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Astorias, who were critics and not initiates.
Yet for all this evidence, the true nature of the Mysteries remains shrouded
in uncertainty because the participants were remarkably steadfast in honoring
their pledge not to reveal what took place in the Telesterion, or inner
sanctum of the Temple of Demeter. To violate that oath of secrecy was
a capital offense. For these reasons,scholars today must make use of circumstantial
evidence and inferences, with the result that there is still no consensus
as to what did or did not take place.

Many experts
have concluded - probably erroneously - that the Mysteries at Eleusis
originally must have come from Egypt. The fact is, the sanctuary ruins
in Eleusis evidently go back centuries earlier than the Egyptian
Hymn to Demeter recited by Homer that is often cited as the proof
that the origin was Egyptian. What is more, the excavations have unearthed
no Egyptian artifacts there from that period.

Many scholars
today favor the view that the cult of Demeter probably derived from Thessaly
or Thrace. They base this conclusion partly on references in Homer and
other ancient authors to some evidently pre-Dorian temples to Demeter
in the Thessalian towns of Thermopylae, Pyrasos, and Pherai; partly on
certain etymological links connecting key words in the rites of Demeter
to pre-Hellenic dialects from the north . Other scholars point out that
Demeter may be the same as a goddess "Dameter," who is mentioned briefly
in Linear B tablets from Pylos dating from approximately 1200 BC. This
evidence suggests that the cult of Demeter may after all have originated
in the southern Peleponnesus.

In any case,
whether the specific cult of Demeter at Eleusis originated in northern
or southern Greece, the undeniable parallels with worship of grain goddesses
in other parts of the eastern Mediterranean region point to frequent contacts
and the cross-fertilization of religious ideas. And we certainly think
that the Canaanite Feast of Tabernacles was a corrupted version of some
more ancient form.

As it happens,
the term "Thesmophoria" is derived from thesmoi, meaning "laws," and phoria,
"carrying," in reference to the goddess as "law-bearer." But the symbolism
of the ark as the "law bearer" in the "tent of meeting," or the "Mother-Delta,"
the "doorway to the higher realms," replaced the original meaning and
the role of women in the process. Based on our own researches, we believe
that True Christianity - which is almost virtually unknown today - was
a resurgence of a very ancient Tradition - and that this same Tradition
was preserved, in part, in Shamanic lore, was part of the Cathar beliefs
as well as the true meaning of the Grail legends.

Jessie L.
Weston writes in From Ritual to Romance:

The more
closely one studies pre-Christian Theology, the more strongly one is
impressed with the deeply and daringly spiritual character of its speculations,
and the more doubtful it appears that such teaching can depend upon
the unaided processes of human thought, or can have been evolved from
such germs as we find among the supposedly 'primitive' peoples... Are
they really primitive? Or are we dealing, not with the primary elements
of religion, but with the disjecta membra of a vanished civilization?

Certain
it is that so far as historical evidence goes our earliest records point
to the recognition of a spiritual, not of a material, origin of the
human race. Students of the Grail literature cannot fail to have been
impressed by a certain atmosphere of awe and mystery which surrounds
that enigmatic Vessel. There is a secret connected with it, the revelation
of which will entail dire misfortune on the betrayer. [...] It is so
secret a thing that no woman, be she wife or maid, may venture to speak
of it. [...]

There
is no doubt that the Grail was something secret, mysterious and awful,
the exact knowledge of which was reserved to a select few. […] The Nature
Cults still remain reliable guides; it is their inner, their esoteric,
ritual which will enable us to bridge the gulf between what appears
at first sight the wholly irreconcilable elements of Folk-tale and high
Spiritual mystery."

In our work
on Noah, we have tracked the Grail legends back to prehistoric times -
in Western Europe and Central Asia - via the very area emphasized in many
other ancient myths, including that of Jason and the Argonauts: Colchis
and the Caucasus regions. Mircea Eliade writes:

Recent
researches have clearly brought out the "shamanic" elements in the religion
of the paleolithic hunters. Horst Kierchner has interpreted the celebrated
relief at Lascaux as a representation of a shamanic trance. The same
author considers that the "kommandostabe" - mysterious objects
found in prehistoric sites - are drumsticks. If this interpretation
is accepted, the prehistoric sorcerers would already have used drums
comparable to those of the Siberian shamans.

Finally,
Karl J. Narr has reconsidered the problem of the "origin" and chronology
of shamanism in his important study. He brings out the influence of
notions of fertility (Venus statuettes) on the religious beliefs of
the prehistoric North Asian hunters; but this influence did not
disrupt the paleolithic tradition. His conclusions are as follows: Animal
skulls and bones found in the sites of the European Paleolithic (before
50,000 - ca. 30,000 BC) can be interpreted as ritual offerings. [...]
Soon afterward, probably about 25,000 BC, Europe offers evidence
for the earliest forms of shamanism (Lascaux) with the plastic representations
of the bird, the tutelary spirit, and ecstasy. [...]

What appears
to be certain is the antiquity of "shamanic" rituals and symbols. It
remains to be determined whether these documents brought to light by
prehistoric discoveries represent the first expressions of a shamanism
in statu nascendi or are merely the earliest documents today
available for an earlier religious complex, which, however, did
not find "plastic" manifestations (drawings, ritual objects, etc) before
the period of Lascaux.[…]

Everywhere
in those lands, [ in Central and North Asia,] and from the earliest
times, we find documents for the existence of a Supreme Being of celestial
structure, who also corresponds morphologically to all the other
Supreme Beings of the archaic religions. The symbolism of ascent, with
all the rites and myths dependent on it, must be connected with celestial
Supreme Beings; we know that "height" was sacred as such, that many
supreme gods of archaic peoples are called "He on high," or "he of the
Sky," or simply "Sky." This symbolism of ascent and "height" retains
its value even after the "withdrawal" of the celestial Supreme Being
- for, as is well known, Supreme Beings gradually lose their active
place in the cult, giving way to religious forms that are more "dynamic"
and "familiar" (the gods of storm and fertility, demiurges, the souls
of the dead, the Great Goddesses, etc.) […]

The reduction
or even the total loss in religious currency of uranian Supreme Beings
is sometimes indicated in myths concerning a primordial and paradisal
time when communications between heaven and earth were easy and accessible
to everyone; as the result of some happening, these communications were
broken off and the Supreme Beings withdrew to the highest sky.[…]

The disappearance
of the cult of the celestial Supreme Being did not nullify the symbolism
of ascent with all its implication. […] The shamanic ecstasy could be
considered a reactualization of the mythical illud tempus when
men could communicate in concreto with the sky. It is indubitable
that the celestial ascent of the shaman is a survival, profoundly
modified and sometimes degenerate, of this archaic religious ideology
centered on faith in a celestial Supreme Being and belief in concrete
communications between heaven and earth. […] The myths refer to more
intimate relations between the Supreme Beings and shamans; in particular,
they tell of a First Shaman, sent to earth by the Supreme Being or his
surrogate to defend human beings against diseases and evil spirits.

This historical
change in the religions of Central and North Asia […] in turn altered
the meaning of the shaman's ecstatic experience. Descents to the underworld,
the struggle against evil spirits, the increasingly familiar relations
with "spirits" that result in their "embodiment" or in the shaman's
being "possessed" by "spirits," are innovations, most of them recent.
In addition, there are the influences from the south, which appeared
quite early and which altered both cosmology and the mythology and
techniques of ecstasy. Among these southern influences we must reckon,
in later times, the contribution of Buddhism and Lamaism, added to the
Iranian and, in the last analysis, Mesopotamian influences that preceded
them.

The initiatory
schema of the shaman's ritual death and resurrection is likewise an
innovation, but one that goes back to much earlier times; in any
case, it cannot be ascribed to influences from the ancient Near East.
But the innovations introduced by the ancestor cult particularly affected
the structure of this initatory schema. The very concept of mystical
death was altered by the many and various religious changes effected
by lunar mythologies, the cult of the dead, and the elaboration of magical
ideologies.[including Egyptian]

Hence
we must conceive of Asiatic shamanism as an archaic technique of ecstasy
whose original underlying ideology - belief in a celestial Supreme
Being with whom it was possible to have direct relations by ascending
into the sky - was constantly being transformed by a ongoing series
of exotic contributions culminating in the invasion of Buddhism.

The concept
of mystical death, furthermore, encouraged increasingly regular relations
with the ancestral souls and the "spirits," relations that ended in
"possession." The phenomenology of the trance underwent many changes
and corruptions, due in large part to confusion as to the precise nature
of ecstasy. Yet all these innovations and corruptions did not succeed
in eliminating the possibility of the true shamanic ecstasy.

More than
once we have discerned in the shamanic experience a "nostalgia for
paradise" that suggests one of the oldest types of Christian
mystical experience. As for the "inner light," which plays
a part of the first importance in Indian mysticism and metaphysics as
well as in Christian mystical theology, it is already documented
in shamanism.

But shamanism
is important not only for the place that it holds in the history of
mysticism. The shamans have played an essential role in the defense
of the psychic integrity of the community They are preeminently
the antidemonic champions; they combat not only demons and disease,
but also the black magicians. [A shaman is a] tireless slayer of demons.
The military elements that are of great importance in certain types
of Asian shamanism (lance, cuirass, bow, sword, etc.) are accounted
for by the requirements of war against the demons, the true enemies
of humanity. In a way it can be said that shamanism defends life,
health, fertility, the world of "light," against death, diseases, sterility,
disaster, and the world of "darkness."[...]

What is
fundamental and universal is the shaman's struggle against what we could
call "the powers of evil." […] The shaman's essential role in the defense
of the psychic integrity of the community depends above all on this:
men are sure that one of them is able to help them in the critical circumstances
produced by the inhabitants of the invisible world. […] A member
of the community is able to see what is hidden and invisible to the
rest and to bring back direct and reliable information from the supernatural
worlds.[…]

We have
already referred to the likenesses between the accounts of shamanic
ecstasies and certain epic themes in oral literature. The shaman's adventures
in the other world, the ordeals that he undergoes in his ecstatic descents
below and ascents to the sky, suggest the adventures of the figures
in popular tales and the heroes of epic literature. Probably a large
number of epic "subjects" or motifs, as well as many characters, images,
and cliches of epic literature, are, finally, of ecstatic origin, in
the sense that they were borrowed from the narrative of shamans describing
their journeys and adventures in the superhuman worlds. [ Eliade, Mircea,
Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.]

In short,
we suggest that Esoteric Christianity - the REAL teachings of Jesus -
were a revival of the most ancient of True Traditions of Freedom - an
antediluvian tradition handed down from the Ancient Athenians of Plato's
myth - the defenders of the world against the Evil Empire of Atlantis.
This Evil Empire of Atlantis is reincarnated in the present day - the
controlling empire of our world - and seeks to establish a One World control
system exactly as Atlantis did ages ago. Part of the means of doing this
includes brainwashing the masses, even those who are seeking alternative
explanations in philosophy and religion. For those who seek outside the
already corrupted standard religions, there is now the Stargate
Conspiracy - the promotion of Egyptian and South American mysticism
as the source of the Tradition. And it is a lie.

Christianity
is quite interesting when one removes the obvious gloss of the Egyptian
resurrection myth. When the reader is fully informed about the variations
on these two themes, it is almost pathetically easy to read the New Testament
and see what might be original to "Jesus," and what was added by the "creators"
of Christianity as we know it.

What is
even more interesting was the fact that the only writings contemporary
to the times of early Christianity, which mention it specifically, remark
that it is a "vile superstition." Yet, what we have as Christianity today,
is nothing more or less than the same religious practices of the peoples
who branded it a "vile superstition." Obviously something very strange
happened between the times of the early Christians, and the times in which
Christianity became the established religion. And whatever it was that
happened, changed Christianity from a "vile superstition" to an acceptable,
all-inclusive, monotheistic device. In short, it seems evident that "true
Christianity" has completely disappeared from the world stage and those
individuals who call themselves Christian are not, in fact, Christians
in the original sense of the word by any stretch of the imagination.

The question
that comes to mind is: what would the peoples of that time have considered
a "vile superstition," when one is aware of what they considered normal
religious practice? The only thing that seemed to fit the bill, so to
say, is the possibility that whoever was the figure around which the Jesus
legend was wrapped, was teaching that the "God of this world" was an "evil
magician." Not only that, but that he probably suggested that man is the
manifestation of God, and all creation is the "body of God," and that
there was no point in praying to an "external god" at all. Now that would
have set just about everybody back then on fire! To suggest that sacrifice
to the gods, that appeasing the gods, that honoring the gods, that praying
to the gods, that expecting to be saved by or cleansed from sin by any
of the gods, was a waste of time would have been absolute heresy to all
of the many religions! For them, such an idea, and only such an idea,
would have been most definitely a "vile superstition."

In fact,
we have something of a parallel in some remarks about Pythagoras. He was
accused of believing the "vile superstitions" of the barbarians, that
a soul is born over and over again into different bodies as opposed to
the nonsense of the Egyptians that induced them to place all their hopes
in a physical resurrection, for which purpose they went to such extremes
as attempting to preserve their bodies for that future resurrection!

Clement
of Alexandria writes:

These
are the times of the oldest wise men and philosophers among the Greeks.
And that the most of them were barbarians by extraction, and were trained
among barbarians, what need is there to say? Pythagoras is shown to
have been either a Tuscan or a Tyrian. And Antisthenes was a Phrygian.
And Orpheus was an Odrysian or a Thracian. The most, too, show Homer
to have been an Egyptian. Thales was a Phoenician by birth, and was
said to have consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians; as also Pythagoras
did with the same persons, by whom he was circumcised, that he might
enter the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic philosophy.
He held converse with the chief of the Chaldeans and the Magi; and he
gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common hall which he
maintained. And Plato does not deny that he procured all that is most
excellent in philosophy from the barbarians; and he admits that he came
into Egypt.

Whence,
writing in the Phaedo that the philosopher can receive aid from all
sides, he said: "Great indeed is Greece, O Cebes, in which everywhere
there are good men, and many are the races of the barbarians."[…]

And in
the Symposium, Plato, landing the barbarians as practicing philosophy
with conspicuous excellence, truly says: "And in many other instances
both among Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons
are already numerous." And it is clear that the barbarians signally
honoured their lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods. For, according
to Plato, "they think that good souls, on quitting the supercelestial
region, submit to come to this Tartarus; and assuming a body, share
in all the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for
the race of men;" and these make laws and publish philosophy, "than
which no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of men, or
will come.[…]

And it
is well known that Plato is found perpetually celebrating the barbarians,
remembering that both himself and Pythagoras learned the most and the
noblest of their dogmas among the barbarians.[…] [Circa AD 260-340]

But, as
one notices when reading Clement, he has an agenda to validate Judaism
and the New Covenant of Christianity. He identified "barbarians" as including
Egyptians, Persian, Hindus, Babylonians, Phrygians, and so on. Again we
find that all we can discover about the deeper beliefs of the ancient
secret schools is what we hear from their detractors. In the end, Clement
promoted the idea that the "true philosophy" was Hebrew, and that it was
preserved most closely in the Egyptian "Mystery Schools." This twisting
of the facts by someone with an agenda, has been the foundation for centuries
of researchers to look in the wrong direction for the answers, and to
follow the wrong clues regarding such things as the Ark of the Covenant
and the Holy Grail.

The teaching
of Jesus - whatever his real name was - was obviously this True Tradition,
and was later corrupted and glossed by those who rewrote the Bible for
purposes of power and control.

But this
is nothing new. Time after time the Esoteric Tradition is misunderstood
or deliberately buried, and so it dies. Then, when the time is ripe,
it must either be restored or rephrased. In the meantime, the meaning
is kept alive in communities or schools symbolized by the name "ark,"
of which Noah's Ark was one.

A clear
sign that the inner knowledge has been misunderstood is the idea that
the inner knowledge is "secret." This misunderstanding comes
from a lack of comprehension of the term "inner" itself.
The impression is conveyed that these ideas are the possession of an
"inner group" and are not to be given to others, when nothing
could be further from the truth. The real problem is due to what we
now understand as "vectors of direction," the many "agents
of the Matrix" in our reality who interpret the terminology in
a purely material way, and promote their versions on the unsuspecting
public. An example is the case of the crucifixion itself. The words
that Paul used to describe "Christ crucified" have nothing
to do with an historical event, and everything to do with an "inner
event." The crucifixion describes things which can and do happen
within and between serious esoteric students and is a clear analogy
for problems of the inner life of man which urgently require study.
Those who understand the crucifixion in a purely outward way, or who
cling to the past as promoted by the Control System, miss the living
tradition.

As Jesus
said: "let the dead bury the dead."

The fact
is: inner knowledge is freely available to all those who are willing
to look into themselves and face the pain that this brings.

Boris Mouravieff
tells us that the Christian Esoteric Tradition has always remained alive
within certain monasteries in Greece, Russia, and elsewhere. It is true
that this knowledge was hermetically hidden, but at the same time, its
existence was known and access to it was never forbidden to those seriously
interested in esoteric questions.

Mouravieff
tells us that his commentaries are drawn directly from the Eastern Christian
Tradition: the sacred texts, the commentaries written around these texts,
and especially from the Philokalia which is, above all,
the same teaching and discipline, transmitted by fully authorized individuals.

Attentive
examination and comparison of Mouravieff's work to that of Ouspensky and
Gurdjieff will show the incomplete character of the latter, as well as
the deviations from the ancient doctrine.

Christ
categorically affirmed that entry into the Kingdom of God is closed
to those who have not been born anew. This second Birth is the object
and goal of esoteric work.

Mouravieff
tells us:

The greatest
genuine faith, human intelligence, and goodwill, are not sufficient
to prevent errors and deviations in everything that touches the domain
of Revelation. The errors and deviations of Ouspensky's book [declared
by Gurdjieff to have been accurate as far as it went] - attest to the
fact that it was not written under the aegis of the Esoteric Brotherhood.
This means that the facts on which the book was based have a fragmentary
character, In the esoteric realm, all fragmentary knowledge is a
source of danger.

As it was
in the past, so it is in the present: certain Gnostic schools, seeing
the imperfection of the created world, and without searching for the reason
for the existence of these imperfections, have, by a shortcut of thought,
jumped to conclusions. One modern day example is the work of Dr.
J.S. Chiappalone.

The Tradition
is One, whether it is the esoteric core of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism,
or Sufism, and whoever delves deeply into these things cannot fail to
note the Unity of the teachings. All the great religions which have
issued from the One Tradition are messages of truth - yet each of them
addresses only part of humanity - parts with certain character. Esoteric
Christianity , in its perfect expression, aims at a general resurrection
while other doctrines, even though they belong to the Truth, essentially
aim at individual salvation and are therefore only partial revelations
of the Tradition.

Most of
the writings of the Philokalia were intended for people
who had already acquired some proficiency in esoteric studies. One
could actually say the same about the Gospels, corrupted and glossed
though they be. Bishop Theophan, in his preface to the Philokalia,
insists on the fact that without help nobody can succeed in penetrating
the doctrine. This is why esoteric science conserves and cultivates
an oral tradition which brings the letter to life. Oriental Orthodoxy
has known how to keep this Tradition intact by applying the absolute
rule of Hermetism in each particular case. From generation to generation,
ever since the time of the Apostles, it has led its disciples up to
mystic experience.

If Hermetism
has provided a safeguard for nearly twenty centuries, it must be said
that circumstances have now changed. At the current point in history,
as at the time of the Coming of Christ, the veil has been partially
raised. Therefore, for those who want to advance beyond book knowledge,
which never goes beyond the domain of information; for those who intensely
seek the true sense of life, who want to understand the significance
of the mission of those who labor in the vineyards of the Lord at the
time of the Harvest, the possibility exists for initiation into this
divine Wisdom, mysterious and hidden.

Mouravieff
tells us that clarity of the New Testament can be extracted from obscurity
by comparison to the Slavonic texts. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that the translation of the New Testament into Slavonic was
done at a time when the spirit of the texts still remained close to the
original meaning. The second is that the fixed nature of the Slavonic
languages, Russian in particular, remain very close to the old Slavonic
language which is still in used in the divine service of the Orthodox
religion in the Slavic countries.

The Slavonic
text is generally attributed to Constantine the Philosopher, also known
as St. Cyril, and to his brother St. Methodius, both learned Greeks
from Salonika. Arriving in Chersonese of Tauric, St. Cyril found, in
the ninth century, that the Gospels were already written in this language,
suggesting that they were produced in a period when the forms remained
alive - as stated by the apostle St. Andrew, who taught Christianity
in Russia in the first century of the present era… close to the time
of the events.

Mouravieff
notes that all serious esoteric teaching, as in ordinary education, is
almost uniform.

It is
generally accepted that nobody can go on to secondary school without
having completed an elementary education. Nor can a person be admitted
to a university without having a secondary education. These graduations
automatically "select" those able to become active members
of the cultural elite of human society.

Exactly
the same is true in the esoteric Tradition.

However,
in our modern world, we encounter a curious phenomenon. For example:
we would not seek to discuss Newton's binomial theorem without having
studied algebra, for without this, every opinion we expressed on the
subject would be worthless.

Yet, in
the esoteric field, we find a host of "experts" who declare
their opinions on esotericism without having ever learned even the rudiments
of this knowledge.

At the
same time, some of them demand "simplicity" from esoteric
teachings on the generally accepted principle that Truth itself must
be simple. They conclude from this that access to Truth ought to likewise
be simple. Then they assert that the methods to access Truth must be
easily assimilable.

This argument
would be perfectly correct if human beings and the problems they face
were simple and just. However, that is not the case. There is a long
road to travel from our state of distorted inner disorder to any "original
simplicity."

In practice,
the doctrine of "simplicity" - if regarded as an axiom - turns
the student aside from the strait gate and the narrow way that leads
to Life. Impelled by this counter-truth, he believes he stands before
this door, when he is in reality - although undoubtedly in perfectly
good faith - walking the wide path that leads to perdition, ad majorem
Diaboli gloriam, of course.

The Doctrine
of Simplicity, correct in itself, but wrongly interpreted, becomes a
snare for hearts and minds that are already too corrupt; a danger which
should be recognized and avoided.

Some people
complain that the subject of the fundamentals of esotericism is not
simple. Others have said that it leads to great clarity. This apparent
contradiction is explained by the fact that esotericism is addressed
to readers who are predisposed to esoteric culture by their nature,
formation or personal experience.

Jesus
said: "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." And then he
adds: "You shall know them by their fruits."

It is
difficult, if not impossible, for an esoterically unevolved person to
discern false prophets spontaneously. He will recognize them more easily
by their "fruits," by the observable results of their works,
which serve as signs. The Tradition knows and teaches a whole Science
of signs.

Jesus
further said: "Temptations (snares, traps set to entice to sin)
are sure to come, but woe to him by or through whom they come! It
would be more profitable for him if a millstone were hung around his
neck and he were hurled into the sea than that he should cause to
sin or be a snare…"

This warning
is disturbing, but its value is real. A thief can carry off our wealth;
a 'ravening wolf' can deprive us of salvation.

That 'ravening
wolves' appear in sheep's clothing we shall learn from the following
text, well-phrased to frighten us:

"It
is not everyone that saith unto me: Lord, Lord, who shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he that accomplishes the will of my Father
which is in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I shall
declare unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye who work iniquity."

The conclusion
is that neither prophecies that are fulfilled nor the occurrence of
miracles give us any surety against 'ravening wolves.'

And
in our own times: "There shall arise false Christs, and false
prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if
it were possible, they should deceive the very elect."

Our era
is the time of Transition. We are in the heart of this period, which
is relatively short. All the signs show that the necessary conditions
for the End are emerging before our very eyes.

This time
brings with it a great preparatory task for the transition to the approaching
Cycle of the Holy Spirit. The preparatory task fundamental to the Time
of Transition can and must be accomplished under the Aegis of the Absolute,
for human beings and BY human beings. Success depends upon the
emergence in the near future of a sufficient number of people belonging
to a new human type - torch bearers who have an innate predisposition
for esoteric work. And, it is Women who must play the inspirational
role in this difficult time of Transition leading to the promised era
of redemption.

The objective
of esoteric work is the march towards Consciousness, which means towards
Truth. The final aim that man can hope to achieve by esoteric work
is to attain the Second Birth and so overcome Death.

With rare
exceptions, this aim can only be attained by the student through hared
and methodical work. The sum of the conscious efforts required is proportional
to the degeneracy of the Personality.

The discipline
is accepted voluntarily, but it is of iron. The student can abandon
the work at any moment to return to worldly interests.

The freedom
of choice and the initiative demanded of the seeker bring a danger:
that of taking the false for the true; the impure for the pure, allowing
himself to become subject to traps and snares. When such errors are
made by the pure in heart, they will be warned in time, even if they
persist in their error.

The real
danger, which can lead to mortal sin, to a definite check, occurs when
an impure heart seeks to be served by higher psychic forces for its
own egoistic ends. This is a quagmire.

A curious
phenomenon often occurs in the human mind when it considers the generally
hermetized theories and facts of the esoteric realm.

In any
field of science, pure, moral, applied, it is generally accepted that
we must be well versed in a subject before we can give a valid opinion.
To speak seriously, one must speak of what one knows, which presupposes
previous studies.

In the
esoteric domain, many purveyors of "esoteric science" believe
themselves to be competent without even completing an elementary education.
They may receive all kinds of "insights" and messages from
all kinds of sources, but the problem with that is that they judge these
messages and teachings to be positive or true before they have even
developed within themselves the correct instrument with which to judge.

The problem
is: we KNOW that any given thing can only be conceived, understood
and judged by something similar or higher. Without this, all judgments,
discussions and advice about esoteric facts remain comparable to evaluations
and opinions about the shade of a specific color by someone born blind.

Just as
the world we live in is closed off, invisible to the fetus in its mother's
womb until the awakening of its birth, even so the higher planes of
Life, the astral and spiritual, are similarly closed and invisible to
us until the Second Birth. Until then, man can only form hypotheses
or refer to the testimony of authors who have themselves been Twice
born.

As for
passing valid judgments of these facts, no one can do this until he
has himself crossed the second Threshold.

What seems
clear is that it is commonplace these days for people of perfectly good
faith to persist in their ignorant attitudes about esotericism. This
phenomenon is due to two principle causes. One is the general tendency
of humans to claim qualities which exist in them only in potential,
and the second - a consequence of the first - is the deification of
Personality. Without doing any real, prolonged work, they "trust
themselves" or rely on their own "truth" to guide them.

We are
not speaking here of people of bad faith; we are speaking of sincere
people who stray into gross error. Their case is precisely that of
the sick in need of a physician. They are small "Sauls" who
could be converted to small "Pauls," and thus might become
useful laborers and earn a reward in the fields of the Lord. But they
wander in their searching beyond the place where they could receive
compensation for the work that they have done.

In esoteric
work the phenomenalist mentality seeks facts. It looks for manifestations
that confirm that its work is well founded, or which simply satisfy
its curiosity. This is where the snares and traps and greatest dangers
lie. For it is often possible to obtain the desired "facts"
quite easily from the astral realms, to which the human personality
also belongs. When the personality is firmly anchored in the physical
body it is generally incapable of making direct connection with the
astral levels. However, certain persons, known as sensitives, have
the innate or acquired faculty of momentarily weakening the ties of
the personality to the physical body so that, with no esoteric evolution
whatever, they are able to connect with this level - connecting to the
coarsest levels of the astral.

"Facts"
obtained this way are often regarded by people who seek them as coming
from the spiritual level. However, this level is a vast reservoir of
psychic entities that have no contact with the higher plane, including
amongst them discarnate Personalities, who normally remain there to
await their Second Death - the negative equivalent of the Second Birth.
This usually occurs on the fortieth day after death of the physical
body.

The Tradition
expressly warns seekers against contacts with this realm which is so
dangerous and full of the worst illusions.

The
power of intervention of these entities in the lives of humans is a
function of the credulity they meet. The yearning to experience miracles,
visions, etc, creates an atmosphere favorable for their appearance,
which can assume various forms, often perceptible to the physical senses.

In the
materialist mind of the cultured man of our era, the true and the false
in esoteric research easily become mixed together. This entanglement
shows above all in the domain of our affections, which are generally
unbalanced in us because the habit of lying has become our true second
nature. The innate faculty of immediate discernment of the true from
the false is thus lost, and man, even the most cultured and learned,
becomes singularly credulous, particularly in the mystical realm.

This imbalance
affects us according to law: credulity is inversely proportional
to true faith.

And here
we must define faith:

Faith
is an openness and trusting attitude to truth and reality, whatever
it may turn out to be. This is a risky and adventurous state of mind.
Belief, in the religious sense, is the opposite of faith – because it
is a fervent wishing or hope, a compulsive clinging to the idea that
the universe is arranged and governed in such and such a way. Belief
is holding to a rock; faith is learning how to swim – and this whole
universe swims in boundless space.[1]

In
other words, the less open we are to truth and reality, the more our credulity
grows and the more we are inclined to adopt "beliefs" and rituals,
often taking grotesque forms. In
this mechanism we can see the familiar action of the General Law of Accident
which is the essence of the Matrix:

To
inspire the man who seeks the Way with the idea that he is already on
the way. This is the best and the most common means used by the "Devil"
to turn away the seeker who has had insufficient warning from the narrow
way which leads to Life. Jesus asked:

How
can ye believe which receive glory from one another, and seek not
the glory that comes from God only?

When
we accept the "glory of men," yet still believe that we are
on or walking on the Way, we fall directly under the law of equilibrium.
Jesus alluded to this when he quoted the Pharisees who prayed in the
streets, saying that "they have already received their reward."

It
is well understood that the human Personality, in the unfinished state
in which we find it, forms our only instrument for esoteric work. Better
still, it is a gift; it is the talent the Master has given us so that
we may make it bear fruit. Woe to the servant who buries it in the
earth of his body. "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer
darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And here,
this is no metaphor.

We
must therefore work with love and with all our strength since we do
not know at what hour the Master will come.

This
being so, the attitude of the esoteric Doctrine towards lying is clear
and realistic. ...We must fight energetically against .. useless lies.

It
is only by training of this nature that we shall progressively be able
to master the rooted tendency to lie which exists within us. Every
attempt to hurry things, so far as lying to others is concerned, though
it be a noble attempt, is doomed to early failure. We live in a world
which is immersed in lies and moved by lies.

It
is also necessary to guard against a variant of the habit of lying to
ourselves, one which we commonly adopt from early childhood, and against
which we must fight by every means. This variant is widespread because
at first glance it appears to us to be a positive attitude. ...When
applied to ourselves and for our own benefit, with the aim of softening
a shock, or regaining our inner peace after we have sinned, or excusing
our actions or faults, this idiom crystallizes within us over a period
of time an auto- tranquilizing mechanism. ...It is a true mechanism
of mental anesthesia, founded on a refined and disguised lie. It sows
hypocrisy in man towards himself.

This
auto-tranquillizer must be destroyed."

But we see
so often how desperately people want to be "tranquilize." How
many individuals have written to us asking for an answer that would help
them feel peaceful and enable them to go to sleep at night. They want
"positive messages." They want a program of meditation that
will make them feel good, or something to do or "look forward to"
that will ease their anxiety when they glimpse, momentarily, the reality
of the Matrix. They want to feel chosen and special by virtue of having
been "contacted" and performing rituals without doing the absolutely
agonizing work necessary to precipitate transformation.

Mouravieff
continues:

The
permanent link which must be introduced between the Personality and
the real "I" is esoteric Knowledge. The knowledge and understanding
that it permits us to acquire represent the philosopher's stone of
the medieval mystics. They are capable of provoking in man the transmutation
to which he aspires.

We
must work ceaselessly, for fear of not succeeding in time. One must
work, says Jesus, "while it is day: the night comes when no man
can work."

These commentaries
of Mouravieff are absolutely invaluable, and would be helpful to every seeker
on the path and reader of the Cassiopaean Material. This is especially
so because Mouravieff actually describes things that we have already
experienced, even though we did not precisely understand what it was
we were doing, how or even why.

For example,
Mouravieff calls the influences of the material world, the Matrix, the
predator's mind, etc, the "A influences." (He has diagrams
showing how they affect the consciousness.) The influences of the esoteric
center, the "real world" concealed by the "matrix illusion,"
the "truth," are called "B influences."

He writes:

If
a man spends his life without distinguishing between "A" and
"B" influences, he will end as he started, one could say
mechanically, driven by the Law of Accident. ...He can have a brilliant
career in the meaning the world gives to this expression. Yet he will
come to the end of his days without having either learned or understood
anything of the Reality. And dust returns to dust.

In
life, every being is subjected to a sort of competitive test. If he
discerns the existence of the "B" influences; if he acquires
a taste for gathering and absorbing them; if he continually aspires
to assimilate them better; his mixed inner nature will slowly undergo
a certain kind of evolution.

And
if the efforts which he makes to absorb the "B" influences
are constant and sufficient in force, a magnetic centre can be formed
within him.

If
this center once born in him is carefully developed, it takes form,
and in its turn will exercise an influence over the results of the
"A" influences which are always active, deflecting them.

Such
deflection may be violent. In general it transgresses the laws of
exterior life and provokes many conflicts in and around man. If he
loses the battle, he emerges with the conviction the the "B"
influences are nothing but illusion: that the only reality is represented
by the "A" influences. Slowly, the magnetic center which
had been formed within him is reabsorbed and vanishes. Then, from
the esoteric point of view, his situation is worse than the one he
had started with, when he was just beginning to discern "B"
influences.

But,
if he emerges a winner in this FIRST struggle, his magnetic centre,
consolidated and reinforced, will draw him to a man having a "C"
influence stronger than his own, and possessing a stronger magnetic
center. And so on in succession, the last man being in connection
with another having in influence "D", who will be his link
with the Esoteric Center "E."

Henceforth
in life, that man will no longer be isolated.

To
the measure of its growth, the man will escape the dominion of the law
of accident and enter the domain of consciousness.

Mouravieff
then shows a diagram of the person who deludes himself and does not struggle
against the lies of the Matrix... who has not engaged in the work of
stripping away lies:

This
second figure, with black magnetic centers, represents the situation
where man deludes himself and, believing he is absorbing "B"
influences and making the necessary selection all the while, he in
fact absorbs "A" influences... This will put him into contact
with people who possess magnetic centers of the same nature: who are
themselves duped or who dupe others, and who have no direct or indirect
link with the esoteric Center.

In both
the Wave Series and the Adventure
Series, we have been dealing with identifying these very influences
and emphasizing the necessity of "collecting" the "A"
influences in terms of "seeing the unseen" of what we have called
the Theological Reality. We have also met many characters that are aptly
described by Mouravieff in his diagram of those individuals who have deluded
themselves and have created a magnetic center of negativity, and how they
attract to themselves others with similar negative magnetic centers.

In other
words, the activities described in the Adventures series - the constant
questioning, stripping, looking at what is difficult and dealing with
it - the shocks of seeing the Matrix, the "man behind the curtain,"
the effort to "see the unseen" is the very activity of collecting
these "B" influences which then lead to the "magnetic
center," or "lodestar," as the C's called it.

Q: When I post material on the website, those people who resonate to
the material believe that this refers to them also. I have been of the
opinion that Unified Thought Form being must mean a very large group
as represented in this density. I know that we are dealing with limiting
terms. But, is this applied to people who CHOOSE the Cassiopaean option?
A: Maybe it is best to say it applies to those who recognize the application.
Q: So, if they recognize it, if they know it is them, they are part
of it. (A) But, thinking in nonlinear terms, its up to us to work to
make this precise. You are asking this question which implies that the
answer exists. But, exactly what the answer is may be it is not yet
chosen, and it is up to us to make it this way.
A: Lodestar is a clue for you.

Mouravieff
writes:

This
evolution seems a long process, an uninterrupted combat with a series
of successes and falls. More than once, he who searches will fall
into crises of discouragement; more than once it will seem to him that
he is being driven beyond the limits of his own life; he will sometimes
feel crushed under the burden of the tests and difficulties against
which he will be pitted during his search.

This
can be understood when we know that esoteric science in its teaching
goes far beyond simple information. Its purpose, in fact, is nothing
less than the TRANSFORMATION of the very being of those who study it...

In
every case where esoteric science offers ALL, it demands ALL in return.
One must pay all.

It
is impossible to reach the true by the path of lies or hypocritical
games, because in this case we seek to BE, rather than to "appear
to be."

Mouravieff
describes the reaction of the "matrix/ B influences" to the
person who is on the Path:

As
long as man accepts the principle of the final annihilation of his
Personality without a fight, he can carry on in life without attracting
the increasing pressure of the General Law of Accident upon himself.

The
case is totally different if he struggles to surpass the limits which
it imposes. He then runs against the action upon him of this Law and
its derivatives. It acts simultaneously on several planes: physical,
mental and moral. Its action on the moral plane is conceived by man,
since time immemorial, in the form of the personification: the Devil."

We are also
reminded of Gurdjieff's remarks about the "mechanical force"
having promoters and adherents at very high levels who act under its powerful
influences. We suggest that both are 4 and 5 D STS beings.

...Once
the first positive results are obtained those students will unmistakable
run up against the active opposition of the law and the "game of
the Crafty One."

It
must be realized that in placing himself under the aegis of the Law
of Exception, man goes against the General Law of Accident, which he
is even called upon to overthrow, if only on the individual scale.
He must no forget - under penalty of "surprise attack" -
that salvation depends on victory over the Devil, which, as we have
said, is the personalized moral aspect of the General Law of Accident.
This is so even though this, being a cosmic law, is naturally a divine
law.

One
must not be afraid, as the Law of Exception is also a divine law.

In
choosing it, man continues to serve the interest of the whole, but
differently and in an incomparably more efficient manner.

During
his fight against the first law, he is subject to tests that often take
the form of temptations. ...We are permitted to draw attention to the
indirect nature of diabolical action.

If,
aiming straight towards his goal, which is liberation and salvation,
the seeker successfully overcomes the obstacles and by this shows proof
of a strength that would permit him to defy the authority of the General
Law, the latter will begin to act upon him indirectly, generally by
the mediation of his near ones if they do not follow the same path:
this action occurs on the moral plane, and often takes emotional forms
appealing to his most noble, generous and disinterested sentiments:
to his charity; his obligation; his pity. It impels him down blind
alleys, insinuating that he will thus be returning to his duty, that
by so doing he will go on walking in the right path, etc.

This
will clarify the profound saying of Jesus that : "A man's worst
enemies are those of his own household."

Let
us repeat: esoteric work is by its nature a revolutionary work. The
seeker seeks a change of state: to overcome Death and attain Salvation.
This is the goal give to this work by the scriptures: "If ye
live after the flesh, ye must die."

The
man who lives passively under the first law, insensibly and without
being aware of it - even as an excellent citizen - involves himself
in "The broad way that leadeth to destruction; he who chooses
the Law of Exception takes : "The narrow road that leadeth to
life."